Every cake has a story to tell and Bethia Palmer takes pleasure in expressing herself through colours, styles and flavours. 

Her delicious dreams come to life whenever she takes her whisk and flour in hand. Palmer is a firm believer in generational legacies as she is a beneficiary of it. She is committed to keeping her family’s traditions alive with her customized, deluxe and delicious cakes and other desserts with her business, Iris Griffith Cakes.

Palmer could always be found in the kitchen as a child trying to help her mother prepare the ingredients. She was dubbed as “Bethia loves flour” because of her benevolent nature. Though decades later, Palmer still recalls her earliest memory of baking. “ My first memory of baking would be me sitting on a high stool helping my mother crack eggs for a cake. That would be around age 5. I believe we were making an orange cake. She taught me how to remove the “eye” of the egg. Total old wives tale by the way, but I learned how to make a cake from scratch,” she shared.

Bethia describes baking and decorating as being therapeutic, relaxing and in some instances healing. She describes her business as her alter ego because it allows her to express through her cakes the side of her that she wouldn’t normally show- the fun, outgoing, daring side that pushes the envelope with designs that are eye-catching and timeless. She loves when her clients give her the free rein to be as creative as possible.

Understanding ingredients and their functions and how they interact when combined is literally chemistry. Though coming from a family of bakers, Palmer still had the opportunity to fully appreciate the exact science that goes into baking through her studies of Baking Technology at the University of Technology.

 “My mother, Rowena Johnson, was my first teacher. She taught me all the fundamentals as she was a Food Preparation teacher too. Having lived in Guyana for a while as a child, and being exposed to a different culture and cuisine sparked an additional interest,” said Palmer.

Iris Griffith Cakes was birthed in 2018. Palmer was in a dead-end job which she wasn’t excelling in and which caused her to be constantly stressed. Approaching the age of 40, Palmer did some retrospection and decided that she had to make some changes in her life. That was when she decided to leave her 9-to-5 job in order to pursue her passion, baking.

“Iris Griffith was my maternal grandmother. She was a hard-working baker from a small community village called Zeelandia on Wakenaam Island on the Essequibo River in Guyana. She was known in her community as an outstanding baker of bread and cakes,” Palmer says hence the name of the business. The core values of my business are faith, commitment and integrity. She says her grandmother embodied all these and more, so her business name gives honour to her grandmother’s legacy.

One of Palmer’s high points since the start of her business venture was being invited to participate in the Sweetart Bake Expo ‘Battle of the Giants’.
“I know that I’m talented, but nothing compares to external acknowledgement and validation. Also being deemed fit to compete with the best cake decorators in the country? Talk about an ego boost!”

Iris Griffith Cakes is a brand. Palmer explained that her goal right now is to increase the public’s awareness of her brand which will result in increased sales and awareness.

 “I see the Iris Griffith Cakes brand extending into a line of small cakes and kitchen utensils, a place to go for online baking classes and I also want to have a line of cookbooks,” said Palmer.

Her advice to someone who wants to start a small business is to not be afraid and to just get started.

” Life is filled with uncertainty. What is there to lose, it might just work!”

 The cottage-like structure on a hill in Knockpatrick, Manchester, is the current home of Iris Griffith Cakes. Though the business is located in Manchester, Iris Griffith Cakes caters to the 14 parishes in Jamaica.